Announcement and release notes for Wary (and Racy) Puppy 5.5

Wary Puppy is built from a "Puppy builder" system named Woof (http://bkhome.org/woof),
which can build a Puppy Linux distribution from the binary packages of any other distro.
There are many "puppies" built with Woof, including Lucid, Wary, Racy, FatDog, and Slacko.

Each
"Puppy distro" built by Woof is a distinctive distribution in its own right, with
unique features. You choose a puppy based on your particular needs, be
it specific hardware, software, or access to and compatibility with the
package repositories of a particular major distro.

Woof release notes

Woof is the substratum of all puppies built from Woof, so these notes
are common to all. Since the commencement of the Woof project in November 2008 there has
been rapid development, too much to list on this summary page. However, here
are highlights:

Since the release of Puppy 4.3.1 (2009-10-17) up to the release of Quirky 1.0 (2010-05-05), in no particular order:

There has been a massive restructuring to support
internationalization. Puppy can now be very easily changed to operate in
any language, right from early bootup. At the heart is an easy-to-use
GUI named 'MoManager' that makes translation to any language very easy 1234567891011121314151617181920212223

Translation is achieved by a one-stop-shop 'langpack' for each language -- so far we have de, fr, pl, ru, es 12345

Please note that some puppies that are not built from the
latest version of Woof, or remasters of an earlier release of Puppy,
may not have all of the above features.

Wary Puppy
Wary Puppy is intended to be our on-going commitment to older hardware.
Puppies built with recent Linux kernel and X.org may not work properly
on older computers. In particular, some analog dialup modem drivers
cannot be compiled with recent kernels. Another major area is old video
hardware not working with latest X.org drivers. Many of our
leading-edge puppies are built with recent kernel and X.org, however
Wary is built with an "old" kernel and X.org 7.3 so
as to provide better drivers for the older hardware. However, Wary is
in all other respects at the leading-edge like the other puppies, with
recent applications, and support for all modern peripherals (printers,
scanners, cameras, digital modems, etc.). Wary is also built with the
latest Woof, so has the same infrastructure as other recent puppies.

The packages used to build Wary were originally compiled from source in
T2, then binary PET packages created. Wary is now built with PET
packages, with a small but growing repository. As Wary is intended to
be a long-term-supported project, there will be no major upgrade, only
incremental improvements such as application upgrades and bug fixes.
Thus, the PET repository will remain viable for years ahead and will
continue to grow as developers contribute packages.

Wary 5.0 release notes

Wary 5.0 was released on December 29, 2010. The version number "5.0"
does not imply any relationship/synchronisation with other Puppy
releases, such as Lucid Puppy (currently nearing 5.2). Wary 5.0 simply
signifies this is the first release of another fifth-generation Puppy.

Wary 5.1.1

This is a very minor bugfix upgrade of Wary 5.1. The main problem in
5.1 is that the 'jimtcl' PET package was accidentally left out, which
is needed for detection and setup of some USB 3G modems. You can
install this PET without upgrading to 5.1.1:http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-quirky/jimtcl-0.63.pet
Other minor bugfixes are in the underlying Woof infrastructure (see notes above).

Wary 5.1.2

Once again, the focus has been on bugfixing, but also some packages are
upgraded. Most of the bugfixing has taken place at the Woof level, see
above. Additional notes specific to Wary 5.1.2:

Note that I decided to stay with SeaMonkey 1.1.18, as 2.2 has a badly
broken Composer module. Also, 1.1.18 is smaller and better suited to
older hardware -- FlashBlock and AdBlock plugins are included to suit
those on dialup and download-limited Internet connection.

A couple of projects that need special mention: BaCon and gtkdialog.
BaCon is a superb BASIC compiler, and gtkdialog provides sophisticated
GUIs for shell scripts. Both of these are extremely active projects,
with very keen developers and users. BaCon 1234 gtkdialog 12

Wary 5.1.4

More minor bugfixes and upgrades to 5.1.3. Some fixes also at the Woof level, see above. Notes specific to Wary 5.1.4 build:

Wary 5.2 release notes

This is a massive upgrade relative to the 5.1.x series. All of the base
packages were recompiled in T2. Certain choices were made in T2 with the
plan of seamless upgrading from Xorg 7.3 to 7.6 -- that is, the default
Wary system has Xorg 7.3, but it is planned that Wary can be upgraded
to Xorg 7.6 by installation of a single PET, and all applications will
work before and after. This required some very careful configuration.
The idea is to "have our cake and eat it too" -- Xorg 7.3 for old
hardware, easy upgrade to 7.6 for newer video hardware. The plan
actually seems to be working.
As usual, huge changes yet only a small version-number change. Many bug fixes, upgrades, new packages. Summary:

Introducing Racy Puppy. Wary 5.2
has the 2.6.32.45 kernel. As noted above, Wary can be updated to
support modern video hardware by installation of a single mega-package.
If we go the whole-way and also build with a very recent kernel, then
Wary is no longer "wary" but targets the very latest hardware. This
rebuild of Wary, effectively pulling Wary "up by its bootstraps" has
even been given it's own name, Racy Puppy. Racy will be released soon. 1234

Wary (and Racy) 5.2.2

Wary 5.2.2 is a bug-fix and minor upgrade of 5.2. Simultaneously, Racy
puppy, our "Wary on steroids" is debuting, with the same version number.
There were some Woof-level bugs in Wary 5.2, fixed, announced above.
Here are release notes specific to the Wary and Racy builds:

Racy has Xorg 7.6 and the 3.0.7 kernel, Wary has Xorg 7.3 and the
2.6.32.45 kernel. Racy boots straight to X on first boot, and launches
Quick Setup, whereas Wary runs the text-mode configuration dialogs,
including the Xorg Wizard, before starting X. Otherwise, everything
under-the-hood is the same, and PET packages from the 'wary5' repo
should work on both. Note, the 'wary5' repo is still a bit light, but I
hope to improve that. Though, the selection of SFS files has improved.
Basically, if you are asking whether to use Wary or Racy, the former is
intended for older computers, especially uniprocessor CPUs and for those
who still access the Internet by analog dialup modem. As to choosing between Racy, Slacko, Lucid, etc., that is up to you...

Wary (and Racy) 5.3 release notes

Read about 5.2.x above, it all applies to 5.3, with only a small number
of package upgrades. The real changes have occurred at the Woof level,
in particular pervasive support for internationalization, plus a
"multitude" of bugfixes. There are now 'langpacks' available for many
languages, and these also include translations for most of the
applications used in Wary and Racy. Brief release notes:

Wary (and Racy) 5.5 release notes

The last official release was 5.3, on 5 April 2012 (1), and there were two betas for the next version on 28 September 2012 (2), and 3 December 2012 (3), followed by a lull, then a series of Release Candidates in February (4, 5, 6).

Most of the system libraries and some major apps have not been upgraded
since 5.3, but a lot of smaller apps and utilities have, notably those
created "in house" by our very enthusiastic
developers such as zigbert, rcrsn51 and 01micko (plus more guys!)

What really has progressed significantly since 5.3 is the Woof
infrastructure, bringing a plethora of bug fixes and enhancements. These
improvements have made it imperative to release a new Wary (and Racy).

Note that Wary 5.5 has the same old 2.6.32.59 kernel (configured for uniprocessor i486 CPU), as we have a heap of
3rd-party analog (dialup) modem drivers compiled for it, plus others.
Note also, most of those modem drivers are included in the live-CD
.iso file -- which is partly why Wary is so great for "retro" uses such
as analog dialup and old hardware.

As already explained above, Wary targets old hardware, whereas
Racy targets newer hardware. Racy has all the "innards" of Wary, except
various things are upgraded to suit newer hardware -- especially Xorg
and the kernel.
Racy does not have as many analog (dialup) modem drivers, nor true-SCSI drivers. For that, you need Wary.
Racy is intended for "more modern" hardware than Wary, but not
necessarily the very latest. Think perhaps most hardware a year or more
old.
Another way to separate them is that Wary is optimised for single-core CPUs, whereas Racy is optimised for multi-core CPUs.

Racy 5.5 has the 3.0.66 Linux kernel, configured without PAE support
(so only accesses first 4GB of RAM), and for a i686 CPU. It has SMP (multi-core) support.

Kernel Mode Setting
A note about KMS, for those who know what that means. Wary does not use
KMS at all. Racy has KMS enabled (by default) for the intel 'i915'
kernel module and
for the 'nouveau' kernel modules, but not for the 'radeon' kernel
module. Wary doesn't even have the 'nouveau' driver, only the
'nv' driver (Racy has both, but the 'nv' driver is by default not used).
if you have an nVidia video card and experience difficulty getting
either the 'nv' or 'nouveau' driver to work on Racy, please go to the
Puppy Forum -- this is an issue that we are currently targeting to try
and make setup smooth.

Lots of puppies...

Spup (Slacko)

"Spup" is our generic name for puppies built with Slackware binary
packages. The main reason behind Spup is binary compatibility with
Slackware packages, and the Puppy Package Manager can install from any
of the Slackware repositories. The foremost Spup right now is "Slacko",
and is currently one of our official flagship puppies.

Upup (Precise)

"Upup" is our generic name for puppies built with Ubuntu packages. Our
latest is Precise Puppy, built from Ubuntu Precise Pangolin binary
packages. What
you get is a very small distro (the live-CD is about 150MB) yet with
just about every application you would need and the speed and
ease-of-use that Puppy is famous for. All of the advantages of Puppy,
plus binary compatibility with Ubuntu .deb packages -- Puppy's own
Puppy Package Manager will install any packages from the vast Ubuntu
repositories!

So many more puppies!

It is so easy to create a custom Puppy, either by using Woof or
remastering the live-CD (there is an super-easy remaster program in the
Setup menu), and this has resulted in a huge choice of custom puppies.
The main problem is finding out just what is available. A good starting
point is the Community News page:http://puppylinux.org/news/